Should We Stay or Should We Go

 
Over at QandO, Bruce "McQ" McQuain fisks recent statements by Democratic US Senator Russell Feingold by questioning the logic of the left's call to abandon Iraq. Like most of these "pro-war" arguments, Jacksonian premises are implied but never really discussed.

Allow me to say it out loud.

When Bush spoke before the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner, the regime in Iraq had been toppled and thus our mission, as per the Congressional Authorization to Use Military Force, was accomplished but for one small detail: we had yet to capture Saddam or his sons. By the time we did apprehend him, his sons were dead and most of the other leaders of the regime were also dead or in custody, so all of the greivances listed in the AUMF were remedied. The war was technically over, and at that point we could have simply left Iraq technically victorious.

But that's not generally how Americans end wars. Running through the core of this nation, traversing the entire political spectrum, is a magnanimous moral sense that compels us to leave our conquered enemies better off for having suffered defeat. Therefore Americans rebuild the national institutions of our former enemies and try to set them on a course for future political success. The most shining example of this moral sense in action is of course our post-war actions of World War II, when we dedicated ourselves to the rebuilding of the vanquished and largely destroyed nations of Germany and Japan.

Unintentionally, Feingold brings up a necessary question: to what length does our moral obligation to help those we defeat extend? In Iraq, most of the personnel losses we've suffered have occurred during this post-victory phase. The seemingly constant violence produced by the insurgency has certainly rattled the nerves of Americans, to the point that the miserable idea of abandoning our own victory before it has been secured for the foreseeable future sounds good to many of us. Although Feingold's prescription for leaving Iraq is wrongheaded, it may be time for us to come out and discuss exactly what we owe the people of Iraq versus what is within our power to give them.

As McQ successfully argues, there are undeniably compelling, even sufficient strategic reasons to support a democratic Iraq, but in many ways those reasons are almost beside the point. Our moral humanity demands we lift up those we have brought down. Even when it's hard.